ESPN approached the U.S. Soccer Federation last year and shared its plan to pump the World Cup into American homes.
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The network already highlights top plays on "SportsCenter" and airs games from England's Premier League and Spain's La Liga, arguably the world's best domestic competitions. But the "tentacles" of ESPN's World Cup coverage will span platforms from programming to publishing, Ader said. It's a company priority.
"You will definitely feel the power of ESPN's machine," he said. "We're going to spend more money than we ever have before for World Cups. ... If you looked at any single event that we've produced on ESPN, this one will get more marketing support than any other."
Way to make World Cup promotion sound like anime tentacle sex. I'd still like them to focus more on the USMNT in their marketing efforts. Although, putting all your cards on a tacticly unimaginative team with players recovering from injuries at key positions is probably not the best marketing strategy to pursue.
-FS
2 comments:
That's a good point about hitching the ESPN wagon too tightly to the US specifically. You don't want to get caught in a "Dan vs. Dave"-style blowback situation when the US eventually is eliminated.
For me the biggest question is going to be the quality of their coverage. Last world cup they were blown away by Univision's superior coverage and, at least through my cable provider at the time, better picture quality (standard def).
I'll be giving ESPN a chance but I will probably end up watching most of the world cup on Univision (in HD this time) even with my poor Spanish language skills.
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